Hidratation of lipid membranes and hydrophobic and hydrophilic monolayers.

ALARCÓN, L.M , SIERRA, M.B , MORINI, M.A , PEDRONI, V , APPIGNANESI, G.A AND DISALVO, E.A .

Congreso; XLIII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Biofísica; 2014

By molecular dynamics simulations we studied the hydration of membranes composed of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) lipid molecules, revealing that the water molecules do not only moisturize the polar groups of the lipids, but also penetrate through alkane chains of such molecules. To characterize these lipid systems and compare them with other systems as hydrophobic and hydrophilic monolayers we study different parameters, such as density fluctuation, residence times and orientation of the water molecules on the surface of the monolayer, in addition to typical parameters in lipid membranes as area per lipid and number of water molecules per lipid.